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Our blogs provide fresh, impassioned and authoritative commentary and insight about the variety of civil-liberties issues that the ACLU of Michigan takes up each day in our courts, governments and communities.

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With the help of dedicated volunteers and community activists, the ACLU of Michigan works to raise awareness about the importance of preserving the individual rights and liberties that are guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.

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The ACLU of Michigan is one of more than 50 affiliates in the United States. As such, we encourage you to know as much as possible about your civil liberties. Further, if you feel those liberties have been violated, we suggest you submit a complaint. We only accept complaints that occur within the State of Michigan. If your complaint arose in a state other than Michigan, you must contact the ACLU office in that state.

About Us

Since our founding in 1920, the American Civil Liberties Union has led the fight to conserve our most precious liberties. Through the passion of our supporters, we have grown from a roomful of civil liberties activists to an organization of more than 500,000 active members and supporters with 54 state affiliate offices as well as a legislative office in Washington, DC.

Religious Liberty

The right to practice religion, or no religion at all, is among the most fundamental of the freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. The ACLU of Michigan Howard L. Simon Religious Liberty Project works to ensure that this essential freedom is protected. The Constitution’s framers understood that religious liberty could flourish only if the government leaves religion alone, and we are dedicated to maintaining that separation to preserve religious freedom for all people.

Billboards In Arabic, English, and Spanish Intended to Remind the Public That ‘We The People’ Means Everyone

2017-06-05 00:00:00

In an effort to remind the public about its First Amendment rights and to reassure immigrants that constitutional protections extend to them as well, the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan on Monday launched a public-education campaign that features the First Amendment printed in Arabic, Spanish and English.

The “We the People” campaign rolled out with the unveiling of an electronic billboard featuring the First Amendment in all three languages posted on Cobo Center in downtown Detroit. The ad will appear on the billboard throughout June.

ACRL, ACLU of Michigan Challenge Latest Muslim Ban

2017-03-16 00:00:00

Today, the Arab-American Civil Rights League and the ACLU of Michigan filed an amended complaint continuing their challenge of President Donald Trump’s latest executive order that limits travel from six Muslim majority nations and halts the refugee resettlement program.

DETROIT – The Arab-American Civil Rights League and the ACLU of Michigan have announced that they will continue their lawsuit challenging the Muslim ban after a revised executive order was signed today by President Donald Trump. The revised order, which still discriminatorily prohibits the travel of some immigrants from designated Muslim-majority countries and halts the refugee resettlement program temporarily, was condemned by the organizations as a transparent attempt to continue the same policies that were already rejected by the courts as unconstitutional.

ACLU of Michigan Files FOIA on Execution of Trump’s Immigration Ban

2017-02-02 00:00:00

WASHINGTON — The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan filed a FOIA request today with its local U.S. Customs and Border Protection office to expose how Trump administration officials are interpreting and executing the president’s unconstitutional immigration ban, acting in violation of federal courts that ordered a stay on the ban’s implementation.

Taxpayer Money Appropriated for Private Schools

2016-08-26 00:00:00

For nearly fifty years, Michigan’s Constitution has strictly prohibited taxpayer funding of private and religious schools. However, in 2016 the legislature appropriated $2.5 million to “reimburse” private and parochial schools for complying with mandates that all schools in Michigan must abide by. The ACLU of Michigan opposed the legislation, and although Governor Snyder recognized that it was constitutionally suspect, he refused to exercise his veto power. Instead, he signed the appropriation into law and simultaneously asked the Michigan Supreme Court to issue an “advisory opinion” on

Religious Prisoners Deprived of Halal and Kosher Food

2018-08-21 00:00:00

In 2013, the ACLU of Michigan won a class action lawsuit against the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) on behalf of Muslim prisoners whose meals did not comply with the halal requirements of Islam. Soon after this important religious freedom victory for Muslim inmates, we learned that MDOC had stopped ordering pre-packaged kosher meals for Jewish inmates. Instead, it adopted a “one size fits all” vegan diet that it claimed met the religious requirements of all religions.

Accommodating Religion at College

2015-12-02 00:00:00

A student at Eastern Michigan University who has been a practicing Wiccan since age 14 contacted the ACLU of Michigan when the public safety department refused to allow him to keep his athame on campus. Wicca is a pagan religion, and an athame is a ceremonial blade used in Wiccan ritualistic exercises to channel psychic energy and demarcate the boundaries of a magic circle.

When Hatred Is Just Around the Corner

2016-04-06 00:00:00

Escaping civil war in Lebanon, my family landed in Dearborn, Michigan, in 1986. Like many immigrants, my parents still speak of Lebanon with the same familiarity they did in the weeks after my aunt opened her doors to her brother, his wife, and their four kids — including me, their clever but slightly odd four-year-old.

Christian Prayer at Public School Graduation Ceremony

2015-02-10 00:00:00

In 2014, the ACLU of Michigan received several complaints that the graduation ceremony at a public high school in Zeeland featured Christian prayers approved by school officials. We wrote a letter to the superintendent and principal explaining that the constitutional prohibition on school-sponsored prayer at graduation is a vital safeguard of individual religious freedom. In February 2015, the school district informed us that prayer during the graduation ceremony would be discontinued.

Public School District Seeks Christian Superintendent

2015-03-03 00:00:00

In March 2015, the ACLU of Michigan received a complaint that the McBain public school system in northern Michigan was seeking to hire a new superintendent with a “strong Christian background and philosophy.” This requirement was listed among the job criteria in an official job announcement posted online, and the board of education had approved the language of the ad before it was posted. The job announcement, moreover, had been written by a professional consultant with over thirty years of experience working in public schools. We wrote a letter to the school board explaining that the job p